


Lending a Hand with the Ambiance Man

by Zilliannie



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Marching Band, Alternate Universe - Transcendence, Reincarnation, Transcendence AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 03:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5728657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zilliannie/pseuds/Zilliannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mizar goes on a date with a cute stranger it can only end in silly noises, ominous violin music, and very literal magic. That's just how her life goes. That's no excuse for shyness.</p><p>Takes place in the Transcendence AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lending a Hand with the Ambiance Man

**Author's Note:**

> For sophiacrutchfeild on tumblr for the Transcendence_AU secret santa! They asked for:
> 
> Pacifica or Robbie.  
> A Henry reincarnation becoming the Woodsman for the first time.  
> A Mizar with the sight.  
> And a Mizar going on a bad date with R!Gideon.
> 
> Being the sort of person I am I tried to get all the points in one.

Her Ambiance was acting up but Amanda still had a good feeling about tonight. **  
**

“You’re the only person I know who’d sneak out to go to a classical music concert,” said Senica.

She crumped her program in her lap. “Grandma knows I’m with you. She’s just fuzzy on the details of where.”

It was a lovely where. Each sound was carried in all directions and the angels painted on the ceiling seemed to be twisting themselves down to the audience, desperate to hear more. Still Seneca teased. “I don’t think your Grandma would be happy to know you’re out on a school night to see a bo-oy-”

“Shh!” Amanda bopped her bestie on the nose. “I am totally here for the art.”

Before Senica could blow a raspberry back the lights dimmed and the duo was left in a loop of ‘shh’, ‘you shush’, and then finally the show began with a booming voice in everyone’s ears. With the lightest touch of Magic the words flitted across her eyelids as well.

“Introducing... for one night only… the great, the stupendous, prodigy… BOYCE BONIFACE.”

The singular spotlight illuminated a boy in a light blue tuxedo. He bowed in either direction before bringing the violin to his chin with a wicked grin.

It was nothing like the orchestra classes in school where she’d beg the director for something, anything, from the neo-pop charts. He didn’t play anything new or exciting. It was all twenty-first century music, classical as classical could be, but her heart still hurt with happiness to hear it. He moved with his instrument like a man possessed, as if the music coming from the violin was in control and he was just the vessel for it. Each song flowed into the next. Each melodious tone was just right.

_(And if there was a second violin that only Amanda could hear, well, no one had to know the way it clashed.)_

When Boyce Boniface set the violin aside for applause Amanda clapped until her hands ached.

She liked his gloves. She also liked his round face and cuddly body but the gloves were less embarrassing to stare at when he bowed.

“Thank you all so much!” he said. His teeth were the whitest she’d ever seen. “Let’s give another round of applause to my ama-a-zing teacher!” They all clapped dutifully. “For my last little song I’m going to need a lovely lady to serenade.”

Seneca instantly waved both her arms to point at Amanda who equally instantly hid her face in her program. She shouldn’t have crumpled it. It didn’t cover very much at all when the searchlight shined on them.

Boyce motioned for the two of them to come up. Which meant in a moment he was going to notice her chair. Everyone was looking at her.

Attention was nice when it was on her earring or the designs on her instrument case. Not so much when there were eyes everywhere looking at the way her wheelchair took forever to lurch up to the stage- with help from several ushers and Seneca. “Come on,” she whispered. “I know you’ve been dying to meet him.”

“I don’t think you know how crushes work,” said Amanda.

Seneca put on her “award” face, the one she planned to wear on the red carpet when she was a billionaire siren singing sensation, and shook hands with the boy in blue like it was the most natural thing in the world. He looked past her. He smiled at Amanda until her stomach flopped in new directions. “Do either of you play any musical instruments?” he asked.

“She plays the french horn!” said Seneca. “But she’s got the best ear in the whole world! She’s got The Sound where The Sight should be!”

“Well, I’d love to see that sometime. What’s your name, darling?”

People with English accents shouldn’t be allowed to call anyone darling. It was an unfair advantage that made her tongue too thick. “It’s-it’s Amanda.”

He never stopped looking at her. Not even when he began to play another of his spells.

Attention was nice when it was because a talented stranger was staring at you.

Secrets were nice when he slipped his number into her hand with a magician's dexterity.

The Ambiance screeched like a horror movie soundtrack.

*

Seneca’s brother was less impressed when his sister relayed the events of the concert. “I get why you’d want to date some wunderkind teenage violin guy. I just don’t get why Butterface wants to date you.”

From the backseat Seneca poked him in the neck. “Because Amanda is amazing obviously.”

“Hey!” he swatted uselessly backwards at her. “I’m not saying Amanda isn’t great.” Amanda in turn smiled graciously, staring at the phone number in her hand. “I’m just saying if I were a Tier 2 grownup I would worry.”

“You’re not a Tier 1 grownup either!”

He stuck out his tongue. “I’m a senior and I can drive. That’s Tier 1.”

“Tier 1 is graduating high school, Junius!”

There was something soothing about sibling bickering, provided you were an only child and could escape it when necessary. Seneca and Junius argued with ease. She could lean her head against the glass and just listen without having to think about the words they were saying. No Ambiance from the supernatural world- just simple satisfying sounds. Unless she listened closely for music.

After a while Seneca reached over to poke Amanda back into the present. “-Right?”

“Hm?”

“I said if you wanted to date somebody nice and ordinary you’d just date Howie, right?”

“Howie Huon?” Amanda wrinkled her nose. “Well, he is cute.” He was the tallest boy she’d ever seen, so tall that he’d scrunch through doorframes, and still flail. But he was willing to bend himself in two to look her in the eyes. “But we’d never work.”

“Why not?”

Amanda smiled wistfully. “You’re in chorus, Seneca, but Howie is in Band and I’m in Orchestra. We’re from two different worlds. He likes to march around playing the trombone.”

“Okay,” she shrugged. “If you don’t want to be reasonable why not go for the gusto? You and Boyce Boniface can bond over sheet music or whatever.”

“Maybe he just wants someone who makes him look taller,” she shrugged. “Or… I think maybe he really liked me.”

“I play bass. I am too cool for this conversation. He’s probably a vampire.” With that announcement Junius turned on his car holodeck and Amanda was left to text as she pleased.

She did please. When she sent a happy ghost emoji Boyce sent her several smiley faces back. 

*

It was a Friday night and Junius had agreed to drive her to the restaurant. It only cost her one lecture as he prepared her chair.  “I don’t care about your spit exchanges,” he insisted. “But if he’s a weirdo text us. Promise? Promise.”

“I promise.”

She knew right away it had to be a super fancy sort of place from the amount of magic they were willing to work to keep dangerous supernatural entities out. Most restaurants just relied on the cities more general wards to decide what could or could not come in. The only Ambiance was a discreet string quartet low and soft.

She’d decided to wear her “ear-ie” earrings, the pair that was an ear wearing hoop earrings. Seneca said he ought to know what he was getting into. Still, maybe she shouldn’t have worn the scarf with the rhinestones. All the adults in this restaurant had real jewels.

And Boyce hadn’t arrived yet. She wheeled herself over to the waiting area and fiddled with the bangles on her skirt. Maybe it was a bad idea to have bangles and rhinestones in one outfit. Her Orchestra teacher said it made her look like a disco ball. Her history teacher had promised her that disco balls were wonderful.

One of the plants had feet. No, there was a person standing along the row of plants by the wall. A person with a shock of bright red hair.

“Howie?” He was too tall to hide from her. “Howie, hi!” Oh, unless he didn’t want to talk to her. Then she was being awful and rude. “Um, nevermind.”

“Hi, Amanda,” said Howie after a moment. He made a few motions as if he’d simply been dusting the plant not hiding behind it. “What are you doing? I mean, uh, I, well, I never see anyone from school here.”

She couldn’t help but beam a little. “I have a date actually.”

What an odd color he turned. Somewhere between a red and a purple. “Wow. Here? Really? Wow.”

“I didn’t know it would be this fancy. But what are you doing here?”

“It’s my parents place,” he said with a shrug. “I work here, uh, whenever I don’t have anything else. A date. Wow. I mean, uh, good for you. I mean, uh, right.”

“I am a little, um, nervous about it,” she said. At least her skin was dark enough that Howie couldn’t see her blush as well as she could see his.

At that he seemed to cheer up incredibly. He leaned down to look at her properly “You know what I do when I’m nervous before a big game?”

“Think about how much easier life would be if you were in Orchestra and didn’t have to march?” she suggested as innocently as possible. There might have been some eyelash bashing and everything.

“NEVER,” he said, but then he was back to his more easygoing self. “I practice my embouchure in my hand.”

She looked over at his long fingers. “In your hand?”

He demonstrated, cupping his hands together and getting his lips just right, when he blew into his hand like a trombone all that came out was the sound of a long fart. He made it again- now it sounded like a musical fart. Melodious and vulgar. Amanda found the laughter burst out of her as easily as breathing.

_(His Ambiance sounded like the trombone too. The enthusiasm that came to playing it, the control it took to get all the different sounds, when she listened close she could hear the start of a jazz solo. The kind they played in elevators. A nice sound.)_

She showed him french horn stylings in her own hand. It sounded more like a duck and they both giggled. Howie wasn’t that purplered anymore. His face had gone to a subtle pink. 

“He didn’t stand you up did he?”

“No,” she nodded. “I’m just early. That looks like his car now.”

Boyce Boniface appeared in a pure white suit, flanked on either side by men dressed in black, waving one of his gloved hands at her. He looked smaller without a stage to stand on. More human. Her nerves went back to normal size and Howie swiftly returned to his place behind the potted plant. 

“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting long,” he said. Amanda could only nod reassuringly before they were ushered to a table. “Love those earrings!”

*

Boyce Boniface liked eating french chicken dishes even when french chicken wasn’t actually on the menu. Boyce Boniface ordered wine, made a big show of remembering they were both underage, before slipping the waiter a twenty to get her a liter of her favorite brand of soda. Boyce Boniface listened to her talk about high school like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

Amanda was starting to have a stinking suspicion that Boyce Boniface might be perfect. It would make the poster of him above her bed much less embarrassing. “I guess I just wonder how somebody my age gets to be a for realzy violinist.”

“Oh that’s a real boring story, darling,” he said idly. “I had two real passions in life and violining was one. I just needed a teacher to give me a hand and here I am.”

“What was the other one?”

He waved the question away. “But what about you? Your little blonde friend said you had The Sight as sound?”

“Oh! Um, well…” she shifted uncomfortable until Boniface took her hand in his. They were bony even through the soft fabric but her heart still backflipped and the story burst out. “Well, I’ve always heard things that other people couldn’t. When I was little I thought it was just like cartoons. Character themes. Ambiance. Some people it sounded like tubas when they entered the scene. Or piccolos! Vampires always sound like, um, violas to me while werewolves have this synthesizer-”

“Sounds fun,” Boyce said. He thought a moment and frowned when she frowned. “Sounds loud. Was it always going?” 

As if aware she was about to talk about him the violin sound dutifully softened.

“Yes, sort of. Lots of ordinary people don’t have anything unless I close my eyes and really listen. But I’ve always had a violin. And I know it sounds funny but it was never… mine the way everyone else’s was. Like I could always hear it, it was connected to me, but I didn’t control what it was playing.” It was hard to explain the way the sound had crept into her life. An imaginary friend without the courtesy to be outgrown. There were plenty of long silences, that’s how she knew it came from somebody else, but even then she could hear the faint flapping of wings.

It always felt like a pause and not a stop.

All the same, even if it screeched when she texted boys like Boyce… “It was with me in the hospital. When I had my accident. I don’t want to talk about it. But that music is the most familiar thing I’ve got that’s all. So I guess whatever is playing it for me is my friend. Just not a friend I want to get to know any better or anything. French horns are better anyway.”

He held on tighter to her hand. “Are you attracted to violinists now?”

“Maybe I’m just attracted to you.” She’s flirted! It was a good comeback too, made him grin down at his soda. They went back to talking about his tour, his time in foreign countries, and trading recommendations for what to listen to next. It really was very good food. She’d have to bring home leftovers for her Grandmother.

It was Howie who came to take their used plates and clear the table. Was she supposed to know him again? Or would it be better to just let the moment pass and talk to him at school on Monday? Howie himself was avoiding eye contact at all costs and Boyce barely noticed him at all. Each plate was balanced on a long lanky arm.

And when Boyce stretched out his leg each plate went flying. So did Howie.

Even in fancy restaurants people clap when dishes break.

His handlers at the other table made no move but Boyce stared down at Howie calmly. “The lady wore her best outfit and you have stained it.”

Did he? She was more concerned about him falling on the floor than the state of her sparkles. She looked down, there were a few small red blotches near the bottom but nothing that couldn’t be washed out. “It’s okay- really-”

“It’s hardly okay,” Boyce interrupted in his loudest voice. “I want to speak to the owner who allowed such incompetence to work here.”

Everyone was staring. Amanda could do was hide her face in her hands. Seneca would have paid the bill and stormed out herself. If not as it happened than when the manager arrived to sooth ‘Mr. Boniface’, or when Boyce tried to insist Howie should be fired, but she didn’t. She kept waiting for the punchline. Nobody would be that nice and then that mean so quickly, would they?

Howie was too tall to slink off. He simply disappeared into the kitchen. Her date nodded like it was the natural thing to do.

Boyce had decided the icing on the cake of their dinner would be to throw his power around. His cuteness had curdled like old milk.

She wasn’t a lot of things. She especially wasn’t somebody who was going to kiss a boy who was that mean to waiters! It wasn’t a job she could ever do well. If Amanda were a waitress she’d forget everybody’s orders and give everyone allergies probably. It just wasn’t fair. Amanda pretended to check her phone- sending out at SOS to Seneca. “I’m sorry, but I really have to go.”

“So soon?” He blinked at her, his handlers at the other table peering at them both over their newspapers, all three confused. “We haven’t had the movie or dessert.”

“Um,” she said. When you’re someone used to slipping numbers to girls on stage and paying for fancy dinners an ‘um’ was the same as a yes. And then into her phone: _i agreed to go to ice cream :(((((((_

She turned on her GPS and hoped for the best.

The larger of his handlers grabbed her chair handles to push her forward. There was a list of people who were allowed to do that and he was not on it. She waved at Howie as she was wheeled out the door. He watched her go- pressing up against the glass until she was out of sight.

It wasn’t a bad ice cream place. When she couldn’t decide what she wanted Boyce demanded free samples of just about every flavor. A switch had gone off in his head. Amanda tried to savor each flavor as slowly as possible so Junius and Seneca could arrive.

The sound of wings stayed close to her ears. She could almost feel a phantom weight against her shoulders.

The movie wasn’t very good. It was horror movie instead of a romantic comedy like she’d hoped, the 4D glasses gave her a headache, and every time there was a jumpscare Boyce would stare at her. He hasn’t noticed I’m not having a good time anymore, she realized. He’s hoping I’ll get scared and hold his hand.

She shouldn’t have bothered wearing a nice dress of trying to flirt at all. He’d decided this date was a success before she’d even said anything.

Maybe he’d even played this game before.

It was dark out when they left the movie theatre. Amanda ignored her goosebumps so he wouldn’t give her his jacket. “Well this was fun. Next time you’re in the area you can, um text me. I’ll call my friends to take me home.”

“You don’t want a ride home?” For the billionth time someone took hold of her chair and began to wheel her towards the parking lot. She could see a limo waiting. Grandma was going to kill her for being out so late- and the more she stalled (“Oh, um, no thank you. I couldn’t possibly…”) the emptier and emptier the lot became. “Don’t worry so much.” Boyce bopped her lightly on the nose. “I wanted to show you the music collection back at my place.”

“Back to your place?!”

He smiled at her again. The smile she’d liked so much from the audience. “You’re a very fetching girl you know.”

No! She didn’t need her Ambiance to tell her that was a solid certified no!

When he tried to grab her- tried to pull her forward- she pulled back-

Without his gloves Amanda could see his hands properly. The gnarled hands of an ancient man. Stitched to his wrists with thick red thread. Boyce tilted his head to look at her. “Now I wish you hadn’t of done that. That was rude of you.”

The words came out clear as bells and firm as a cuivré. “What happened to your hands.”

“I told you my teacher leant me a hand with my violin talents.” He pulled the first of his gloves back on carefully. Repositioned his hair. “I’d hate to lie to a lady.”

She should have listened to her Ambiance and her, her, violinist. Wheeling away from him wasn’t enough- might never be enough. He came close to her again in an instant. His handlers watched from either side.

And no, she didn’t care if she caused a scene- Amanda yelled as loud as she could. 

Two things happened at once.

Howie Huon saw three men trying to get her into their car _(he’d followed her. Had he been following all night?)_.

And the engine of the limousine caught fire.

“Hey!” shouted Howie at the same moment as the flames when from red to blue. The driver hopped out quickly-jogging for the closed movie theater. The handlers had instantly moved to protect Boyce who-

“Now what is that? Who went and cursed the limo?” he looked over at Howie who had jogged over to Amanda, who rolled farther away from the sudden wreckage. “You!” Boyce growled. “You set fire to my car!”

Unlikely. Not when The Sound reminded her of a duo sonata for trombone and violin.

Howie agreed. “I did not! And you tried to get a girl into your car!”

“There’s no law against it.”

“There is!”

“We need to go,” said Amanda. Just because Boyce put his gloves back on didn’t mean she’d forgotten his gnarled hands.

“We do,” Boyce agreed. He motioned for his handlers to wheel Amanda forward again. They stared at each other a moment but went towards her. The larger of the two shrugged apologetically. When she wheeled backwards Howie stepped forward.

“She doesn’t want to go with you, um, I don’t think.”

With someone tall standing between them _(with something loud in her ears)_ it was easier to agree. “No, thank you.”

Boyce wrinkled his nose. “I know we hit a bit of a snag there but I thought we were having a nice time. Let’s go.”

She took another deep breath. “No!”

“A bus boy shows up and you change your mind? Did you forget who I am?” Boyce snapped his fingers and his hands were wrapped in a strange red light. The limo still giving off sparks behind them.

The smaller of the handlers sighed, bored. Both of the men began to glow when Boyce snapped a second time. 

Howie’s eyes went wide at the sight of magic. But then-

“She said no!” Howie was not himself. Like how there was something wrong with Boyce’s hands there was something wrong with his voice. His face. His everything. Like something inside him was stretching. Something growing out of his head.

“Howie?” Amanda reached for him. 

The boys were focused on each other now. Boyce tilted his head to the side. “Now this,” he said. “Is interesting.”

Antlers. There was antlers growing from Howie’s skull like head. From each point hung a pair of hands.

And both boys grinned at each other before moving to attack.

Howie and the handlers _(that could be a band, she thought giddily)_ began the fight proper- the magic Boyce had covered them in making it a fair fight. The creature wearing Howie howled at them both as it took its axe and tried to hack at them. How long had it had an axe?

The streetlights crunched with electricity before they too were engulfed in blue flames. Was that Howie? Or her musician? Either way the shards of glass rained down.

Amanda was not secretly some sort of deer monster or a violinist with stolen hands, but she did have a cellphone. Or she did until Boyce came to crunch it down onto the pavement and stomped on it with his boot.

He was standing too close to her again. The energy of him sending little bolts of electricity up her arms. “This is not the way I was expecting this evening to go you understand.”

“Happy ending though!” shouted Amanda.

Because Junius’s van was now screeching down the pavement and Seneca was screeching out the window. “Amanda!”

“Seneca!” Now there was somebody who could be relied on! Seneca would never catch anything on fire.

And Junius drove the van straight into Howie-

\- and Amanda pulled at the strings of Boyce’s stolen hands-

The force of it toppled her chair over and she hit the ground hard. The hands themselves moved like frightened spiders once free of their maestro. Each skittered in the opposite direction of the other as Boyce shrieked at the sudden loss. Just as instantly the magic around the trio vanished.

The van and Howie skidded forward, the thing wearing Howie’s skin barely wounded, the van crunched on one side. Seneca and Junius were fine. She could feel it.

“My hands! My hands, you stupid girl!” Boyce shrieked. His stumps were smooth to see. If Amanda hadn’t watched them wander off she would have believed Boniface was always meant to be that way.

He seemed prepared to kick her but his bloodied handlers dragged him into the dark, beyond the parking lot, and they disappeared from sight.

Seneca and Junius pushed themselves carefully from the van, Junius with his arms protectively around his sister.

The only question then was Howie. The creature curled up next to the van like a stunned woodland animal, but she could still hear it. Howie’s ambiance. 

She’d need help getting her wheelchair upright again so going to him was not an option. Still, the deer monster stared at her when she called Howie’s name. 

So she practiced her embouchure in her hand.

And Howie laughed back to himself.

There was a fight a moment ago and now they were laughing in the wreckage of it together.

“So I was right,” said Junius solemnly, rubbing what appeared to be his broken arm. “He really was a vampire.”

Seneca’s nose was bleeding but she still shoved him.

The limo driver was nice though. He called the police to take everyone home now that the van was indented on one side by a supernatural being.

*

The police station was clean. They asked a lot of questions and they had a specialist come to reheal Junius’s arm. They told everything they could about Boyce Boniface and his secret methods for becoming a prodigy, all while leaving out Howie and his new talent.

She’d called her Grandmother. She was double grounded.

A moment of privacy and Amanda whispered to him. “Why were you following me?”

“Um, I thought you might want some leftovers?” he said sheepishly. Amanda was too tired to glare and didn’t have to. “I was worried that’s all. You didn’t look happy when you left and I thought-.”

“You thought?” 

Howie looked down at his feet. “I thought I saw a shadow following you. i know that sounds silly compared to what actually happened but-”

No. It didn’t sound silly at all. She wondered if Boyce’s hands were now hanging from Howie’s antlers or if they’d wandered back to their original owner.

“What exactly was that thing you turned into?” she asked.

“The Woodsman. I think. I just _know_. It’s... never happened to me before.”  


It was a good enough answer for now. There was a reason all this music sounded so good together. Even if no one was willing to explain it.

Seneca rested her head against the crook of Amanda’s elbow. Howe’s antlers were lifting strands of her hair now that he was leaning against her on the other side. Junius slept uncomfortably on the floor. 

Whatever the musician was, it could wait until morning to explain itself. After all of this she would be demanding an explanation. For now she could rest between her friends and enjoy the sound of silence.

Maybe she’d even hum a tune of her own.

_(And Dipper hovering above them all was ready to rest. It had been a very full night for all of them.)_


End file.
